Many of the most intelligent figures in history have also been among the least psychologically stable. Is there some sort of "shared territory" between madness and genius?

Answer:
Sir, it is dependent upon the individual, the more extroverted a genius is, the more motivated that individual will be usually, it is true there is a fine line between genius and insanity. In some cases it is environmental factors that cause this anomaly, such as Adolph Hitler, he was a habitual narcotics abuser and there was a somewhat predestined path of derelection that he chose to attend, still he was responsible for the derelect activities that he involved himself in, and actually it was his scientists and engineers that created the technological advances during his regime.
Albert Einstein was perpetually preoccupied and probably did most of his thinking while in an alpha state, and he was a very compassionate and friendly man.
Also there have been many derelect criminals in the last century that were extremely intelligent, so all things considered I do believe that it is the individual genius personality that determines whether or not that individual will use his or her personal talents for good or bad. But there is one thing that makes sense that I can tell you. Albert Einstein had a very large forehead, his frontal lobe was an undivided mass, unlike the average individual who has a folded parietal lobe, Einstein could actually imagine mechanical function which most people must create a model of to understand, furthermore, the smaller a persons frontal lobe is, the more likely that individual is to have natural criminal tendencies whether they are genius or not. well i think u need a bit of both the smart part is for the experiment and the mad part is for taking the risks and put new things in and to share it with the world u know what i mean? Many people who are nuts are low producers. Geniuses tend to generate a lot of product. It is an easy test. Look at what they have done. they share qualities. like, the normal confindes of society or everyday life simply do not appy to them. we look at something and say, "that can't be done." they look at it and think "and why can't it?" That would be a matter of the environment the person grew in. Any psycho behaviors can always be traced back to some traumatic experience, or restriction, or punishments, or abuse, etc. Raised in hell you get satan, raised in the garden of eden you get albert einstein.
But I think there's also a strength of character that will be a factor also, like how much can you bear before you flip type of thing. A genius is usually left alone to create, a stark raving madder would be trying to create in a room full of chimpanzees squawking in his face, five years of that harassment and pretty soon he'll be swinging a baseball bat. And who could blame him?
So where the intelligence gets channeled is probably determined by which channel had the least amount of crap clogging it up!
Most are probably only just managing to balance on the thin line in between! of course there is. have you ever heard the phrase there is a fine line between genius and insanity? Personally I think its because they think on a deeper level then the rest of us. they see things differently and feel things more in depth. That would usually drive even the most sanest person other the edge.

The answers post by the user, for information only, FunQA.com does not guarantee the right.